Weekend diversions

Anime Boston is this weekend, and the Ninja Consultants will be there! They are presenting their panel on Unusual Manga Genres today at 4 p.m., and I’m sorry Iwill have to miss it. Vertical’s Ed Chavez will be at the con as well, moderating a Vertical panel at 3 p.m. Saturday and a Manga Blogger’s throwdown, in which I will be participating, at 7. I’ll be wandering around for most of Saturday, so drop me a line at the e-mail at upper right if you want to get together.

It was at Anime Boston a couple of years ago that I first met J. Dee Dupuy, Dan Hess, and Myung Hee Kim. Even then they were conspiring about some mysterious webcomics project, and they would periodically disappear into Dee’s attic for days at a time to work on it. Well, it has finally come to light, and Bento Comics is a very nice site with an original idea: They feature short webcomics, and readers can assemble their own anthologies and print them via Lulu.com. With a lovely, polished site design and creators like Svetlana Chmakova (Dramacon, Nightschool), and Queenie Chan (The Dreaming, Odd Thomas) on board, Bento Comics looks like a great site for lunchtime (or anytime) reading. (Full disclosure: Several of the conspirators are friends of mind, and Dan draws the chibis for Good Comics for Kids.)

David Welsh, the Manga Village team, and Gia Manry look at this week’s new manga. Lori Henderson checks out this week’s new all-ages comics and manga at Good Comics for Kids.

An anonymous scanlator tells all at Anime Vice. Interesting perspective!

This week’s license request from David Welsh is the apparently rather obscure Jirilove. There’s more on it here.

This week’s shoujo-sunjeong alphabet presents a bit of a challenge: Books beginning with the letter X.

Congratulations to Rob McMonigal on four years of reviewing all sorts of comics at Panel Patter.

News from Japan: The 4-koma comic Lucky Star will start running as a monthly feature in the local newspaper for Saitama, the prefecture where the comic is set. The Saitama Shimbun is also starting a monthly feature on moe.

Reviews: Snow Wildsmith reviews vol. 1 of The Summit, the first DramaQueen release in several years, at Fujoshi Librarian. Just the fact that they sent her a physical copy of an actual book is significant. Lissa Pattillo does a little April foolin’ with her faux review of Kuriousity. Tangognat reviews a handful of Fumi Yoshinaga manga at The Bureau Chiefs.

Gia Manry on vol. 2 of Alice in the Country of Hearts (Anime Vice)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 11 of Angel Diary (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 10 of The Antique Gift Shop (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
David Welsh on Black Blizzard (The Manga Curmudgeon)
Todd Douglass on vol. 1 of Bokurano: Ours (Blogcritics)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 2 of Butterflies, Flowers (The Comic Book Bin)
Emily on Chitose Etc. (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)
Eric Robinson on Crimson Shell (Manga Jouhou)
Katherine Farmar on vol. 1 of Kabuki (Comics Village)
Justin Colussy-Estes on vol. 5 of Mixed Vegetables (Comics Village)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 1 of My Darling! Miss Bancho (i heart manga)
Julie Opipari on vol. 3 of Nightschool (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Danica Davidson on vol. 1 of Otodama: Voice from the Dead (iFMagazine.com)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Pink Innocent (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Andre on vol. 1 of Raiders (Kuriousity)
Connie on vol. 9 of Record of a Fallen Vampire (Slightly Biased Manga)
Julie Opipari on Ristorante Paradiso (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Kris on Seven (Manic About Manga)
Erica Friedman on Taidama! (Okazu)